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Eye of Kalmaras
The dream of a fallen strategist, the Eye of Kalmaras was a strategic weapon originally devised by the Covenant, though realised and built by The Demiurge. History Originally designed by Khar 'Vilja, a strategist of the Ministry of Resolution. Devised at a time when the Covenant were encountering new races, and gripped by inner turmoil, it was designed as a holy lance to protect important core worlds of the Covenant. Using a deactivated or damaged Line Installation, and augmented by the far seeing eye of a chained god-machine or oracle, it could be used to fire on distant fleets or targets, not out of automatic reflex, but through the guided hand of a loyal Covenant officer. Ultimately, it was considered folly, and 'Vilja fell from grace over it, becoming maddened in an attempted to prove it worked. And he did. He created a smaller scale version of the weapon, using an ancillary array, and mercenaries with little care for sacrilege. A single test fire was able to target the planet of Ghesthema, killing thousands. Despite its proven effectiveness, such a thing was seen as unforgivable, in construction, use, and deed. It was destroyed, along with its creator, and presumed gone forever. But such secrets rarely stay dead. A storage device containing the necessary plans and technology to create a full scale mechanism were spirited away, and found its way to the hands of the Demiurge, at this time still a secret organisation buried inside the Covenant. When the Demiurge made their move and snatched an empire from the ruins of the Covenant, they brought with them those plans, and began earnest construction on it as a means of protecting their territory. Ultimately, as they took the offensive, such a weapon seemed unnecessary. It was not until the destruction of the Penumbra Of Castigation that work resumed, as the Demiurge soon realised war would come to their borders. Hastily finished, the weapon's only major substitute was changing the planned Forerunner AI, for a twisted cybernetic machine of their own creation. The weapon became fully functional, and while developments of slipspace termination devices around major worlds prevented it's use as a long range terror weapon, it could still be used against minor, unprotected worlds, or used against fleets travelling in slipspace. Quickly becoming the biggest threat to Alliance operations, it was attacked, and disabled during Operation: LONE CLAW, where a combined UNSC and Sword aerial assault disabled the station. Damaged, but not destroyed, the station would not be reactivated for some time. Design The Eye of Kalmaras is based around a heavy duty particle cannon recovered from the ruins of Line Installation 3-94. Rebuilt, and augmented with Covenant technology, and masked under their typical cowling, this weapon is far larger in size that a standard Line weapon. To power it, it uses several pinch fusion reactors buried in the earth at it's base, and in event of failure or overheat can be plunged into underground pools of coolant. The weapon is further surrounded by a fortress befitting any other. Layered defensive walls, anti-air batteries, artillery platforms, bunkers, redoubts, trenches, shred-wire, and other barriers. Further protecting it are rings of Spire installations, allowing for forces to be quickly teleported to assist in defence. The installation further covers itself with a ring of Stealth Pylons, which while incapable of entirely masking it's presence, can hinder detection and air assault. The weapon itself is a particle cannon of uncommon accuracy and lethality. Anything not immediately eviscerated by it's firepower is rendered powerless by electromagnetic fallout. Even firing into a fleet can render them defenceless, while only one vessel is hit. To give it it's firing range, it uses a slipspace engine to tear open a hole in realspace, and into the welkin realm of slipspace. Normally incapable of creating a 'terminus point' for the beam, the installation relies on autonomous and disposable drones to do so. The installation carries three probe launchers, designed to fire slipspace probes into the breach, they then form a chain of laser-comm probes that can reach a terminus point an open it, allowing attacks on realspace targets. Such efforts are limited by range, as the beam will begin to be warped by the acausal physics of slipspace, and effect terminal accuracy. Such an effort is, without a doubt, a feat of technological marvel. But ultimately, all the machinery cannot be guided by hand. The requirements for firing such a weapon into, and out of slipspace, requires zettaflops of calculations, by the second. Even by Smart A.I.s used by the UNSC, this is a tall order, and requires significant numbers of quantum computers at it's disposal for additional computing power. Without such advanced thinking machines at their disposal, the Demiurge turned to darker means. Thrall Intelligences, organic minds slaved to a mechanical one, have been used by the Demiurge where non-sentient Associated Intelligences would fail. To provide the computational power necessary for the Eye of Kalmaras to fire accurately, it uses an exceedingly large example of the technology. Codenamed the Eternal Mind, the beastly creation utilises three 'circles', each designed for increasing computing power for the stages of firing. The outer circle is a massed hardware system of quantum computers, massive server stacks for storage and transferring data, and several Associated Intelligences, intended largely to control flow of data in and out of the organic components. Purely mechanical, this controls the majority of the data. The second ring are the 'temporary' elements. Unwilling participants, hooked into the machine via surgery, they are still very much alive, and conscious, but utterly incapable of moving. Used strictly as wetware, the five linked minds are used to give processing capabilities similar to fully fledged A.I.s, giving tremendous processing power. Ultimately, those of the second ring are largely disposable, as their bodies and minds will give out under the strain of the augmentations and requirements after several years. The final circle is a set of three isolated, and butchered. Torn from their original body, heavily augmented, and kept alive, these brains are the central processing unit of the AI hive, lacking any will, or even memories of life. These are permanent installations, at least for the foreseeable future until natural biological atrophy renders them unusable.